


Stuck On It

by Barkour



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
Genre: Alcohol, Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 06:06:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Astrid has Hiccup thoroughly in hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stuck On It

**Author's Note:**

> Something short and silly (and hopefully sweet).

The night was bitterly cold and the wind that struck Hiccup full in the face when he stepped out of the great hall ought to have sobered him, but Astrid’s fingers were warm and laced with his and the cider really had been powerful stuff. Her fingerless gloves, woven from a thick and scratchy sheep’s wool, itched at his palms. He should’ve remembered to put his gloves on before he left the great hall, but Astrid had looked at him across the table and wiggled her nose, and he’d forgotten his hat, too. He’d brain enough to remember his coat at least.

She pulled him up the hill, to the back of the hall where the shadows were thickest. It was already so very cold out, what did a few more degrees in the downward direction matter? They’d made out behind the hall before. Probably that could warm them both up a little. But Astrid, holding his hand, kept going.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Away from there,” Astrid said. 

“Well, I can see that,” Hiccup said, and he had to pinch his nose to keep from giggling. “But why? We could just go over—there?” He waved his hand vaguely.

Astrid looked at him over her shoulder. She was squinting, in that way she had when she’d drunk too much beer, like she suspected the world of trying to slip away when she wasn’t looking. Hiccup did his very best to not slip away even a little bit, which was easy to do when she was crushing his fingers.

“I’m not going over there.”

“You’re right,” he agreed. He had to half-skip to get up the steps after her. Somehow he’d lost the pace. “Over there, that’s a terrible place. Hate it. We should totally get rid of it. Toothless!”

“Stop yelling for your dragon!” Astrid scolded.

“Why? I just want to say hi to him. You should say hi to, um, Stormfly too.” He pulled on her hand, put his weight on his heel and his—not heel, and yelled, “Toothless!”

Astrid wheeled on him, gravel crunching under her heels. She swayed on the steps, and Hiccup had to fight again not to laugh, also: to not fall backwards down the hill. The flight of Nadders that nested in the smoking embers of the central fire chattered angrily in the dark.

“Sorry,” Hiccup stage-whispered. “I’ll keep it down.”

“Toothless,” Astrid declared, “is _fine_. You can say hi to him later. In the morning. Later.”

Digging his false foot into the dirt, Hiccup got back upright. “Why can’t I say it now?” He found he was beginning to sink very slowly in Astrid’s direction. She was pretty tall, though, and very strong, so if he fell she’d probably catch him. Or she’d move aside and let him just plant his face in the frozen earth. Probably she’d catch him, though.

“You can’t say it now,” Astrid said. She was scowling. He could tell, even with the moon behind thick winter clouds, just from her voice. He was very good at telling her expressions from how she said things. It was kind of an area of expertise, he’d say if anyone needed an expert in that area.

“Why not?” 

“Because!” said Astrid. She flopped their laced together hands up and down, mesmerizingly. “I’m not making out with your _dragon_.”

“Oh, gross,” said Hiccup, his eyes still caught on their hands, “yeah, that would be weird, that—ohhhhh.”

Astrid propped her free hand on her hip. “ _Now_ do you get it?”

“I did, I did get it. I got it before down there,” Hiccup said very carefully, thinking, “but then I forgot it. But I get it. And I like that. That’s a good plan.”

“Yeah?” That was a smile in her voice now for sure. “Okay. Good. So come on.”

She yanked and he stumbled forward, nearly crashing into her shoulder, or he might have if she hadn’t started up the steps again. Her braid bounced viciously off her back, from one side to the other then back again with her stride. He’d thought the way she swung their clasped hands entranced; this, this was on a whole new level of obsessing. If his left knee weren’t aching down in the bone from the cold, he might even have let the obsession happen.

“You know, I didn’t want to say anything,” Hiccup started, “but it sure is brisk out here.”

“That’s why we’re going inside,” Astrid said. “So hurry up!”

“I _am_ hurrying! This is me hurrying!”

Astrid turned to look at him, and she nearly missed the step above her but she caught it just in time, staggering. “Hurry faster,” she said, and then she was cackling.

“That,” said Hiccup, “is horrific. That sounds terrifying. I’m pretty sure you just scarred every child on the whole island—”

“Shut up!” She was still laughing, even as she jerked on his arm like she was maybe thinking about whacking him with it. “Come on! Shut up!”

“I’m coming! Oh, please, don’t turn me into a frog,” Hiccup mock-quailed as they reached the top of the steps and the last little stretch before his family’s modest home.

“I’ll turn you into dead meat,” Astrid threatened.

“Dead frog meat?”

She shoved the door open and then she shoved Hiccup through as he cowered and begged her for mercy. The fire was down to embers, so Astrid, ever practical, left Hiccup to his groveling so she could feed a few cords of wood to the hearth. Hiccup wrung his hands and then, when she blew the first flame up from the ashes, he gasped theatrically.

“She makes fire! The witch makes fire! Mercy, mercy, oh, cruel and yet strangely alluring sorceress—”

Astrid advanced on him. Her smile was arch, as arch as her brow and as fierce, and he definitely should be begging more, probably on his knees, if he could get his left leg to work. Beside the point, anyway: she got him by the stays closing up his tunic before he could figure out whether or not kneeling would help. Her fingers brushed his clavicle through the stays, her knuckles rough against his skin.

Wood snapped in the fire. Astrid’s thick fur collar was soft at her jaw. She tightened her grip on his shirt and pulled him another step. A spilling warmth was in his head and his breast, rendering him loose-limbed and easy.

“The first thing I’m going to do is turn your mouth into something that doesn’t talk as much,” Astrid told him.

“Good luck with that,” Hiccup said. He palmed her hip, his fingers light on the curve of bone. “I’ve been trying for years but I just seem to talk more. It’s a little bit of a problem.”

“It’s a pretty big problem,” Astrid agreed. “But I like all the dumb things you say. Mostly.”

They swayed together as if dancing, Astrid with her fingers winding through his laces and Hiccup with his head full of clouds. Dancing was drifting, and he was very much adrift and happy to be so if only Astrid would draw him nearer to her.

“Oh, well, that’s—” He rested his forehead on her shoulder; the fur tickled his nose. “That makes me feel better.”

“Are you falling asleep?”

“No,” he said, one hand at her hip and the other at his side, “I’m trying to take your coat off.” He made no move to do so.

Astrid directed him with the shifting of her hip under his hand, and her own hand at his chest pushing him back and back and back.

“I think you’re falling asleep.”

“No way—I’ve been waiting for this all night.”

“All night?” She’d a laugh in her voice, a laugh at his expense.

“You’re laughing at me,” he protested. “But it’s true! You kept making faces at me—”

His knees hit the bed and he tumbled back with a gasp, the world suddenly upended. Astrid clambered on top of him. The fire, crackling at her back, gave her shadows and a budding heat in the light along her shoulders, a ruddiness in the white of the fur at her throat. She left off his stays to shed her coat, peeling it from her shoulders; she threw it to the floor.

“What face?” she asked him. “This one?” And she crossed her eyes at him and stuck out her tongue.

“Oh, you _are_ drunk,” Hiccup said. “You are!”

Astrid hooked her thumbs in the corners of her mouth and stretched her lips out to the sides. “Or this face?”

“Stop! Stop!” He covered his eyes and shook his head, flinging left then right as if in pain. “It’s too horrible!”

“Look at me!” Jabbing at his ribs, she took to tickling him, getting her hands under his coat. “Look at me when I’m making faces at you, Hiccup.”

“You weren’t making any of those faces—”

“You don’t like these faces?” she cried, and when he peeked at her she closed one eye, rolled the other up, and curled her tongue up the side like she was trying to pick her nose but couldn’t make it.

“Too much beer,” Hiccup said sadly. He lifted his hand then let it fall to the bed again. “It’s official. We found your limit.”

“I don’t have a limit,” Astrid declared. She thumped Hiccup’s chest. “Unlike someone I could name. You.”

“Me? I’ll have you know,” Hiccup said, trying to sit upright although Astrid kept pushing him back down, “that I am a—that I drank—three, four—five cups of cider—”

Pushing him down again, Astrid said loftily, “I had eight mugs of beer.”

He pursed his lips at her. “It’s not a competition, Astrid.”

“You’re just upset because I won,” Astrid said, her finger hooking in his stays again. She bent. Her lips were dry, chapped from the cold. She tasted of beer, sour and foul. Hiccup closed his eyes and pushed up into her kiss, rising from the bed though his neck would soon hurt.

She knocked his coat off his left shoulder and as he slipped that arm out and reached to cradle her cheek, he shrugged the other shoulder off. Astrid turned her head, dragging his lip between her own, and she kissed him anew, lingeringly, hotly like the fire as it stretched. His breast ached, his hand on her cheek, his fingertips as he swept the hair back from her ear. His mouth opened; she came for him.

Astrid’s hand fell between his legs to pick the laces free. He slung his right leg up onto the bed, giving her space to work, and rubbed his thumb along her cheek. When she made to pull his trousers down then off, Hiccup arched his hips off the bed, just to help out a little. She jerked the trousers down his thighs, with the same breathtaking efficiency she brought to the battlefield, and then his trousers leg caught on his prosthetic’s cuff and Astrid fell off the bed. Hiccup stared at the place where she wasn’t any longer, and—his nose was burning—he started laughing.

Her hand flopped along the edge of the bed. “What was that?” Astrid popped up, and her eyes were huge, surprise sudden and bright across her face.

Hiccup rolled onto his aside, away from her, and went on wheezing.

“Hiccup—”

He buried his face in his arm.

“It’s not funny,” Astrid insisted, but her voice cracked on fun and then broke entirely on the last bit, and she punched his right thigh.

“Ow!” he gasped. “Astrid—”

But she was covering her eyes as she laughed, too, so she shook all over with it.

“I thought it wasn’t funny,” he said, and it was taking him again too, erupting from his chest and pretty much impossible to stop. He struggled to drag his right leg free of his trousers, but they were so tangled now that—He rolled onto his back again and threw his arm over his face as he hiccoughed.

Astrid climbed back onto the bed and over him, to the free side, and she was still laughing, even as she threatened to sock him: “You’d _better_ not be laughing at me.”

“I’m way too scared to laugh at you,” he sputtered.

“Not scared enough,” she promised, but she buried her head in his shoulder instead of carrying through with it. Astrid’s laugh was warm against his throat, warm on his jaw, better by far than the fire though not half as practical. She kissed the sensitive underside of his jaw, a little brush of her lips across it.

“How about we finish getting those pants off you?” she whispered.

“Give me a minute,” Hiccup said, “I have to take my leg off first—” and he started wheezing all over again.

“Well, hey,” said Astrid, her nose wiggling like she’d wiggled it at him across the hall earlier, though he’d no cider now to choke on and spray across his arm. “They’re far enough down for me.”

“Oh,” Hiccup giggled, “I am truly loved by the gods.”

“Better loved by _me_ ,” Astrid said, and Hiccup couldn’t disagree. She had him very thoroughly pinned.

“I’d rather have you than the gods anyway,” he said.

“Good,” said Astrid, smiling so her eyes gentled with it, “because you already got me.”


End file.
